A Clean Kill in Tokyo

you’d better not forget that all the time someone is running the same kind of operation on you. Thinking like this is what divides the hard targets from the soft ones.
    The same principle works for crime prevention. If you wanted to grab some quick cash, where would you wait? Near an ATM, probably, and probably at night. You’d scout around for the right location, too, someplace with enough pedestrian traffic to save you a long wait, but not so much of a crowd that you’d be impeded from acting when you identified a good target. You’d look for a dark spot far enough from the machine so the target wouldn’t notice you, but close enough so you could move right in once the cash transaction was completed. Police stations close by would make you nervous, and you’d probably hunt for a better place. Et cetera. If you think this way, you’ll know exactly where to look for someone lurking, and you’ll know where you’re vulnerable, where more alertness is required.
    With Midori, extensive surveillance wasn’t even necessary. Her schedule was publicly available. Presumably that was how Bulfinch had known to find her at Alfie. And that would be the easiest way for Benny’s people to find her now.
    From Otemachi I rode the Chiyoda-sen subway seven stops to Omotesando, where I exited and took the stairs to the street. I walked the short distance to the Yahoo Café, a coffee shop with Internet terminals. I went in, paid the fee, and logged on to one of the terminals. It took just a few seconds to access the file Benny had posted. It included a few scanned publicity photos, Midori’s home address, a concert schedule with tonight’s appearance at the Blue Note, and parameters indicating that the job had to look natural. They were offering the yen equivalent of about $150,000—a substantial premium over our usual arrangement.
    The reference to tonight’s appearance at the Blue Note, first set at seven o’clock, was ominous. Predictability, time and place. If they wanted to take her out soon, tonight would be almost too good to pass up. On the other hand, Benny had told me I had forty-eight hours to get back to him, which would suggest she would be safe for at least that long.
    But even if she had that much time, I didn’t see how I could parlay it into a reasonable life span. Warn her that someone had just put a contract out on her? I could try, but she had no reason to believe me. And even if she did, what then? Teach her how to improve her personal security? Sell her on the benefits of an anonymous life in the shadows?
    Ludicrous. There was really only one thing I could do. Use the forty-eight hours to figure out why Benny’s people had decided Midori was a liability and to eliminate the reasons behind that view.
    I could have walked the kilometer or so to the Blue Note, but I wanted to do a drive-by first. I caught a cab and told the driver to take me down Koto-dori, then left to the Blue Note. I was counting on traffic to make the ride slow enough so that I could do a quick sneak-and-peek at some of the spots where I would wait if I were setting up surveillance outside.
    Traffic was as heavy as I’d hoped, and I had a good chance to scope the area as we crawled past. In fact, the Blue Note isn’t that easy a place to wait around unobtrusively. It’s surrounded mostly by stores that were now closed. The Caffe Idee restaurant across the street, with its outdoor balcony, would offer a clear enough view, but the Idee has a long, narrow external staircase that would render unacceptably conspicuous anyone descending quickly to follow a target.
    On the other hand, you wouldn’t have to linger long. You can time the end of a Blue Note set to within about five minutes. The second set hadn’t yet begun, so if anyone was planning on visiting Midori after the show tonight, they probably hadn’t even arrived yet. Or they could already be inside, just another appreciative audience member.
    I had the cab stop before reaching Omotesando-dori, then got out and walked the four blocks back to the Blue Note. I was careful to scope the likely places, but things looked clear.
    There was already a long line waiting for the second set. I walked over to the ticket window, where I was told the second set was sold out unless I had a reservation.
    Damn, I hadn’t thought about that. But Midori would have, if she really had wanted me to come. “I’m a friend of Kawamura Midori’s,” I said. “Fujiwara Junichi…?”
    “Of